Ben Stiller Regrets Making This One Decision That Impacted His Daughter Ella

Few people don't know who Ben Stiller is, and subsequently, mostly everyone also knows the famed actor's two children, Ella and Quinlin Stiller. Like any parent, Ben has tried to not repeat the mistakes of his parents, but in his 2025 documentary, "Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost," he admitted that he might not have succeeded. Ben's children have grown up to be stunning, but he has a few regrets, especially when it comes to his daughter Ella.

In the documentary, Ben recalled how he'd cast Ella in "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." It was a small part, but during the post-production phase, he decided to cut her scene, which meant she didn't get to make her film debut. Looking back, Ben feels horrible about it, telling Ella in the documentary that it's "probably the worst decision [he] ever made in [his] life," per Entertainment Weekly. He ascribed the decision to his own pickiness and obsession with making his work perfect. Ella was very understanding, telling her dad that she believed the scene in which she featured "didn't make sense in the movie" anyway. Her father seemed hesitant to forgive himself for what he now saw as a major blunder.

Ben has weathered plenty of tragedy throughout his life, and cutting his daughter's scene from the 2013 film isn't the only regret he has. During a 2025 interview with The Times, he confessed he'd been an absent father, thanks to his hectic work schedule. "I probably f***ed up more with my kids than my parents did with us," he disclosed. "My son tells me that being a dad might not have been at the top of my list." He expressed regret that he hadn't realized just how much his kids would miss him when he was away for work.

Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor's oldest daughter, Ella Stiller, was not only snubbed by her own dad when he cut her scene from "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," but she also had to contend with her parents' fame as she pursued her own acting career.

Speaking to Teen Vogue in 2025, Ella opened up about what it's like to live with the title of nepo baby. "I grew up with access to people. My parents, my grandparents were amazing actors and writers and that's incredible and that's an amazing privilege, but I wanted to also have my own people and pave my own way and have my own voice be put out there," Ella said. She admitted that she still deals with plenty of judgment from people who don't know her, but that she doesn't have any interest in working with those people, rather focusing her efforts on working with fellow artists who can appreciate that she's trying to forge her own path. However, she told WWD that she doesn't regret her upbringing one bit because it nurtured her love for acting. "The thing I feel the most lucky about is growing up in the city and growing up in a family where that was a priority: us going to see shows," she said.

Carving out her own space in the industry is one of the reasons Ella decided to get a degree in acting. She graduated from Juilliard in 2024 and, in a celebratory Instagram post, hinted that her time at the school wasn't exactly easy. "YOU WOULDN'T LAST AN HOUR IN THE ASYLUM (@juilliardschool) WHERE THEY RAISED ME (No, like, really)," she wrote in the post's caption, referencing Taylor Swift's 2024 hit "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?"